Getting started with the 1939 Register (2024)

FAQs

Why would someone not be on the 1939 Register? ›

Registration of members of the armed forces was dealt with by the military authorities, so the 1939 Register does not include service personnel in military, naval and air force establishments. Nor does it include members of the armed forces billeted in private homes, including their own homes.

Why are some records closed on the 1939 Register? You will see some records covered by a black line in the 1939 Register. These are the records of individuals who were born less than 100 years ago and whose death has not been registered. This is to protect their privacy if they are still alive.

Ancestry users can now trace family members on the eve of the Second World War after the website digitised the England and Wales 1939 Register.

PWC = Post War Credits.

While the 1939 Register, therefore, does not include service personnel who were either in army, naval and air force establishments on the 29th September, or even members of the forces who were resident or visiting their own home at the time, it does record people who would go on to later serve in the armed forces.

Where do I find the 1939 Register for Scotland and/or Northern Ireland? Only England and Wales are included in the 1939 Register online.

The returns are arranged by townland for rural areas and by street in cities, and it is necessary to know the townland or street where a person lived and its corresponding District Electoral Division (DED) in order to find the record of a particular person of interest.

The law, passed in 1978, was an outgrowth of an agreement between the Census Bureau and National Archives. For privacy reasons, access to personally identifiable information contained in decennial census records is restricted to all but the individual named on the record or their legal heir for 72 years.

Participation is mandatory, as described in Title 13 of the U.S. Code. Refusal to respond can result in a fine. However, no one has been prosecuted for failing to respond to the census since the 1970 Census.

Law Enforcement Requests in the United States:

Contents of communications and any data relating to the DNA of an Ancestry user will be released only pursuant to a valid search warrant from a government agency with proper jurisdiction.

How many generations can Ancestry go back? ›

AncestryDNA tests use autosomal DNA, which determines your ethnicity. Therefore, the AncestryDNA test will go back about 6 to 8 generations or around 150-200 years.

Accuracy of Regions in Your Ethnicity Estimate

When you take an AncestryDNA test, your test results will include an ethnicity estimate. Part of this is an estimate—reported as a percentage—of where your ancestors lived hundreds of years ago, as far back as around 1,000 years.

Googling came up with an answer that NR230 was a code for a name change by deed poll but her marriage in Q2 1947 shows she hadn't changed her name for marriage purposes and I couldn't find anything in the Gazette which I understand would show a name change by deed poll request.

The Register was updated until 1991, meaning the record of anyone who died after 1991 might still be closed.

Unpaid domestic work is typically the type of work that a state would provide for its citizens if family members were not already providing for their family. This includes things like child care, elder care, medical care, and nutrition.

To gather this information, they took a National Register. On September 29th, 1939, the personal details – including names, dates of birth, occupations, marital statuses - of 41 million individuals were recorded.

Census Records

Census returns can give a wealth of information on the occupants of a house at a particular time, including names, ages, sex, marital status, birth locations, relationship to the head of the household, and occupation.

Direct consequences of not registering a birth

where a birth has not been registered after 21 days, registrars will make enquiries with the parents to ascertain why the birth has not been registered.

The 1939 Register covers all of the population of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in a similar way to the 10-yearly census.

If no spouse or children were living in the household, the coder assumed the individual was single. If, however, the person had no spouse in the home and there were children present, then one of two codes was entered, either 1) widowed, if the individual was 55 or older, or 2) 7, if the person was under age 55.

Can you view the 1926 census? ›

The 1926 Census Returns will be released to public inspection in January 2027.

By census law, refusal to answer all or part of the census carries a $100 fine. The penalty goes up to $500 for giving false answers.

April 2, 2012. The U.S. government will not release personally identifiable information about an individual to any other individual or agency until 72 years after it was collected for the decennial census.

Apportionment is the process of dividing the seats in the House of Representatives among the 50 states based on the population figures collected during the decennial census. The U.S. Constitution mandates that an apportionment of representatives among the states must be carried out every 10 years.

It is mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution and takes place every 10 years. The data collected by the decennial census determine the number of seats each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives and is also used to distribute hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds to local communities.

Officially closed records

Owing to privacy regulations, we can't show you the personal details of people in the Register who were born less than 100 years and a day ago and are still alive. In your results, you will see that some records are marked as 'officially closed'.

Update us. While searching you'll notice that some records are marked as 'officially closed'. This is down to privacy regulations preventing us from publishing records of anyone born less than 100 years ago and still alive.

Address – To search by address, simply click on the Address tab at the top of the page. You don't have to give a house number. The street name alone will bring back all the houses on that street. Please note that there are some places that are missing from the original manuscript of the 1939 Register.

After 72 years, the records are released to the public by the National Archives and Records Administration.

By census law, refusal to answer all or part of the census carries a $100 fine. The penalty goes up to $500 for giving false answers.

Can you refuse to be counted in the census? ›

Participation is mandatory, as described in Title 13 of the U.S. Code. Refusal to respond can result in a fine. However, no one has been prosecuted for failing to respond to the census since the 1970 Census.

You may decline to answer any or all questions, but each item not answered lessens the quality of the final results. The Census Bureau field representatives need to interview every home in the survey sample to get a complete picture of the housing situation across the country.

4, 1879: Ka-Ching! The World's First Cash Register. James Jacob Ritty patents the first cash register.

There are free indexes to all of the census returns up to 1911 at FamilySearch.org, with links to the images on Findmypast (charges apply).